A wintry mix in mid-December makes for a miserable commute, but officials are gearing up for misery multiplied should Mother Nature let loose on January’s Inauguration Day.
“The bottom line is there is a tremendous amount of people coming into any one given area, which means we’ll have to be in full-scale operations mode,” said David Buck, a spokesman for the Maryland State Highway Administration. “Gosh forbid there’s even a flake of snow.”
Lousy weather would hardly be unprecedented. The average noontime temperature for past inaugurations has hovered around freezing. And rain, sleet or snow have fallen six times since the swearing-in of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1937. Prior to that year, the Constitution allowed the president-elect to wait for the slightly more springlike month of March for his ceremony.
Even if the sky is clear, though, January has been known to kick in a burst of bitter cold. In 1985, President Ronald Reagan’s second inauguration was moved indoors on account of temperatures in the single digits.
So the best advice is the oldest: “Be prepared,” said Kathy Thompson, spokeswoman for the Capital Area Chapter of the American Red Cross, which is coordinating resources in case of a massive inaugural emergency.
“Follow your doctor’s advice if you have medical issues,” Thompson said, “and take standard precautions” such as having extra water and medication on hand just in case.
“Can we predict the weather this January 20? In a sense, of course we can,” said Phil Arkin, director of the University of Maryland’s Cooperative Institute for Climate Studies. “Which is more likely to be cold — January 20 or July 20?”
Beyond that, Arkin said, predictions become cloudier until about a week before the event, and he cautioned visitors relying on the “Old Farmer’s Almanac’s” prognosis for a “sunny and mild” Inauguration Day.
